


To Be Happy

by RobinWritesChirps



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Cheating, Communication Failure, Domestic, F/M, Light Angst, No Apotheosis AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 20:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20627282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps
Summary: Ted hadn't meant to catch feelings, but the feelings didn't give a shit about his permission before making themselves at home.AU in which the apotheosis does not happen because this set-up was fucking interesting and they all fucking died by zombies like, fuck me for wanting to engage with those characters a little bit more than that, I guess. This is set post musical timeline in which the scene at Hidgens never had any cause to happen and Charlotte's affair with Ted is still going on.





	To Be Happy

Charlotte, ever polite and much too goody-two-shoes for anyone's patience, everyone's friend but nobody's best friend, had taken to lying easily and adeptly when it came to hiding the affair. Bold lies even to her fondest work acquaintances, a face of impenetrable righteousness that might have fooled Ted if he hadn't known much better. If their little lie, which had over time grown not so little, ever came to light, it would be his doing, never hers. Ted had often wondered what other lies she might have been hiding, not counting the ones he already knew about. He'd never ask, of course. What she hid from Sam, from him or anyone else, was her business alone.

Still, she had perfected the art of subtly keeping up her little show of faithful appearances and Ted took great pleasure in knowing better. A casual conversation with Bill in the break room he randomly walked onto and the hint was given, sharing that Sam had just started covering night shifts for the rest of the month, not one glance thrown to Ted as he poured himself the last of the coffee pot, clueless Bill being none the wiser. Passing each other in the hall later the same day and some nothing of a whisper.

"Your place."

Their affair had gotten as steady as a cheating lie probably could be, Ted often told himself. A clear deep line in the sand stopping anything from moving forward, but nevertheless occupying the entirety of the little adulterous spot that was theirs. How many strings attached, he could not tell. More than he cared, but entirely unspoken. Months ago and several times since, he had offered Charlotte a key to his apartment but it had always been refused with horror. Unbothered, he waited for her because he knew she always came.

He grabbed takeouts for two after work, cleaned up his place a little bit because he knew Charlotte was easily distracted by mess and he wanted her full attention. Grooming his hair a little sexier in the mirror, his smushing playlist on shuffle and the door rang just on time. Some days, she couldn't get enough of him, invited herself early and stayed as long as she dared and more, filled his evening with a sparkly bit of wonder. Other days, she arrived late, left as soon as they were done, kept her thoughts and spirit to herself. Ted let either happen without trying to veer her one way or another.

"Hey there," he smiled, letting her in.

She waited till the door was completely closed to kiss him, of course. Ted doubted that his neighbors, to whom he had never really spoken, had any clue that she was some sort of mistress moreso than a significant other (and that was if they had noticed her presence at all) but Charlotte was the output control of their little affair and he took the kiss whenever she would grant it. Trapping herself between him and the wall, her small arms wrapping around his shoulders and never letting go, he didn't have to guess which sort of day this was. Whatever Sam had been up to before his new schedule, it mustn't have been paying attention to his wife.

They sat on the couch, hung out, had dinner. Charlotte, of course, was ever so proper, sitting and eating so neatly, trying to pretend that the sprawling mess of Ted didn't bother her. He loved to just exacerbate the differences between them, toy with her nerves just up to the limit of bothering her in earnest. Or sometimes went well past it.

He always touched her when they talked, too, and not just because he knew just how crazy it drove her. Foreplay before sex even began, as he saw it, but he didn't hate those times they hung out anyways. Charlotte was good company, all things considered. Of course, her conversation rarely went past mundane and, from anyone else, would have bordered on boring but he was never bored of her. He pushed and pushed and pushed and Charlotte, little polite thing as she was, almost never caught into his traps of taunting. The challenge was in finding the breaking point, the one thing to say that made her snap into the wilder, bolder Charlotte that was hidden inside, the one the others didn't know. Some days, that took no effort at all.

The empty containers piled on the coffee table, Charlotte's cheeks flushed in prevision of what was to come. They kissed. He liked the way she kissed, how she clung to him as if afraid he'd disappear on her, all the passion in the world trapped just within an embrace and lips pressing together. Charlotte was so enthusiastic in these moments, coming alive in his arms like never on her own. And she was hot. She was so fucking hot.

They had sex. At some point in time, it had stopped being just fucking, probably never would be quite making love, but there was now a comfort between the two of them that had blurred the line of crudeness into mutual pleasure, simple as that. They weren't in any rush like they had been in the beginning. They had nothing to prove to one another, no longer a fear of not having enough of each other. They had enough, alright. He had his fill of Charlotte every week, often several times a week. They came over whichever of their houses Charlotte decided on, they had sex, they hung out for as long as Charlotte cared, then they went on with their lives till their next time. There'd always been a next time, no matter how often Charlotte had claimed otherwise.

Charlotte rode him right there on the couch, her breasts jiggling right in his face, hands full of her butt, and for a few brief moments, there was nothing of the fearful, self effacing Charlotte everyone knew. There was only his Charlotte, the one who was daring and fierce and fucked his brains out like nobody else.

Afterwards, they cuddled, Charlotte curled up on top of him, breaths soothing down into one another. Ted had never been much of a cuddler, but he didn't mind it either. Charlotte thought herself so discreet, having their affair under tight wrap, but there were things she couldn't hide from him. Ted was just about certain that Sam had not cuddled her in probably just as long as the last time he had made her cum. Years, probably. Charlotte latched to Ted's embrace like no one had held her close in this life and the three lifetimes prior. She was, he supposed, a huge boost of confidence he hadn't needed in the first place. He took it all the same. He hadn't been celibate before her, far from it, but getting laid regularly could only make a man think his dick was worth something. The thought made him snort.

"Mmh?"

Charlotte stirred in his arms and he shushed her silent with a kiss on her hair. He liked her a lot. He really did. Fingers tracing idle circles down her back, sweaty skin against skin, the air heavy with the dirty secret of a good fuck yet, he thought, this softness here too, part of it as well. He could stand to hold her in his arms like this, naked and warm, much more often than he already did.

"I wish you'd leave Sam."

Charlotte said nothing, but took his declaration like a slap in the face, he knew. Her body, so floppy and soft seconds ago, tensed up. If he were a better man, he would have felt bad for her. Or maybe he precisely did. His hand stopped circling. A few seconds of thick silence cut through the room.

"I know you heard me."

"Ted..."

"Just being honest," he said nonchalantly. He fiddled with a loose curl at the nape of her neck, wrapped it around his finger. "Sue me, I wish you would. Why don't you?"

She pushed herself from his chest, putting the length of the couch between them. She picked the first garment she found on the floor – his shirt – and covered herself with it as if he hadn't already seen her whole a hundred times.

"He's my _husband_," she said like a rehearsed mantra she told herself. "I can't just leave."

"Why not? Fuck, what's holding you back?"

She let out some low involuntary whine, lowered her eyes to the floor.

"Is it that he's such good _company_? He makes you feel so good?" He scoffed. "No, that's dumb, he's not even home half of the time. You spend every other night here anyway."

That was an exaggeration, but just close enough to the truth that it striked a chord.

"That's _not_ his fault," she retorted with whatever could count as bite for Charlotte − not much at all. "He works hard at the precinct to provide for us and... and _I'm_ the one who's not good enough..."

"That's your fucking problem right here!" he snapped. "Get a fucking grip, Charlotte! You keep hoping that if you're the perfect wife, if you're good enough, he'll change. But you think he doesn't see that already? You think he cares? He _knows_. He's just checked out."

"Ted, please..."

But Ted was too annoyed to stop just yet. Months of this charade, nearly two years since the affair had started, and yet they were nowhere closer to putting an end to it than the first day, one way or another. He _liked_ Charlotte, but in this instant he was consumed with frustration towards her. She was infinitely different than him and that was precisely what he liked about her, but sometimes their difference came and hit him in the face. Ted never thought twice about anything he ever did. Charlotte seemed to put every decision so far back in her mind that it gathered dust forever and spoiled her from the inside. Ted didn't want to see her lose more of herself.

"I know it can't be because he fucks you so well," he said. That was the lowest of blows and he felt what might be the sting of guilt deep down, unused to the sensation as he was. "You practically begged me to fuck you. You still do."

"Ted, stop it, please."

Charlotte fumbled to pick her purse from the floor and fiddled with the inside before dropping it again with a sigh. As if he didn't know, too, that she often kept a flask in there for her own little addicted comfort through the day. She must have forgotten it. He sighed.

"Don't you want to be happy?"

Charlotte was close to tears, desperately hugging the shirt to her chest, fingers too numb to put it on. She wouldn't meet his gaze but he saw the fear in her eyes all the same.

"I… I can't."

And somehow, it made no difference whether this was uttered with Sam in mind or not. Was happiness ever really an option for her? Ted felt an unfamiliar tenderness and whatever next argument that had been brewing in his mind, whatever words of genius that might have convinced her were lost.

"Okay," he sighed. "Yeah, alright."

He tried to smile, to show himself reassuring but she wasn't duped. He supposed that was only fair. In truth, he knew all too well that she wasn't his mess to fix. She wasn't anyone's but herself. If she lingered on in her broken marriage, if refused herself the freedom so clearly at hand, that was only her decision to make. He had no say on that and, he supposed, no right to an opinion either. He found himself wishing she would at least look at him, tell him outright that he never would be a replacement for the husband she had lost long ago and pretended she still had. Eventually he spoke.

"I like having you around, that's all."

It wasn't the whole truth, but it was no lie. She seemed less tense at these words, less nerve wrought than she had been. Such a fragile little thing, yet Ted often thought that, if she were as weak as they thought, she would have burst into nothingness long ago. But then, daring to break free was just another courage she didn't have. Charlotte wasn't one thing, either a pathetic coward or a resilient hero. She was all nuances in between.

"I could live without you," he declared because he knew that to be true, and what was true ought to be said, "But I could live with a lot more of you."

She looked at him. How strange that so many emotions were kept hidden deep inside her heart, yet right here plain on her face at the surface at the same time. She felt more than him, he knew, and perhaps more so in his presence. Things that for him required no emotional attachment took Charlotte to depths of angst or peaks of joy near unknown to him. It wasn't that Ted felt nothing at all. She wouldn't make a sentimental out of him, never, but surely she couldn't have not known that she had kindled in him the tiniest spark of something that hadn't been there before. He smiled and to him, the spark burned bright and strong, small as it was.

He'd live and move on if she walked out on him. Whatever married life Charlotte was giving Sam, the ever loyal wife who worshipped the ground he walked on, he wanted none of that for himself. He'd been single for long enough to know he could more than handle himself. He wasn't after someone to clean up after him, someone to fill his every needs and thank him for it. That wasn't the Charlotte he wanted to be so acquainted with. The Charlotte who was squirming under him, mad with the lust of Christian guilt, wasn't it all either. There was more to her. There was − if slightly − more to them, too.

"C'mere," he said, holding up his arm.

She took the offered embrace like the last drop of water in a desert.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered against his shoulder, crashing into him. "I'm so sorry."

He was out of his depths but for once in his life, he decided to stay there instead of shoving her out of the way and climb his rude way out of the uncomfortable talk. A kiss on the crown of her head, arms circling snugly around her, fingers burying into her hair. There were a million things to say, but neither of them said another word for a very long time, and when they did, they both pretended the discussion had not happened. Later, they had sex again, as if Charlotte was offering her body to make up for the rest of her so tightly guarded.

Charlotte spent the night, a rare occasion, tucked between Ted's arms well into his half of the bed, grabbing him tight like she was afraid he would leave her here alone in his own house. He spent a long time staring up at the ceiling after she fell asleep, his neck tickling with curly red hair, the soothing sound of her light snoring. It had used to annoy him and he had avoided spending the night whenever he could. Now, all he wanted was to fall asleep to Charlotte's squeaky little snores. How many more nights like this, how many fights till she snapped for good? And when she did, which of the scumbag husband or the sleezeball lover would hear her silly snoring at night?

When morning came, the bed was empty.

**Author's Note:**

> the writing gods have decided that I'm gonna be the sole provider of Ted/Charlotte and I'm just fulfilling my divine destiny


End file.
